Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Pilot Script Review - The River

Doctor Emmet Cole was the world-famous adventurer and star of a long-running wildlife and nature documentary TV show. Something like the Crocodile Hunter, but less about outrageous antics and more about the magic and wonder of nature. Doctor Emmet Cole has been missing for 6 months, ever since he took off on a trip down the Amazon River, claiming he was on the verge of a truly huge discovery. Three of his crew were found dead. He is presumed dead.

And, so, Tess Cole (Emmet's wife) tries to convince their 28-year old son, Lincoln, who was never able to find the "magic" in nature that his father forced on him as a child, to join her voyage down the Amazon to try and find her husband and his father. Tess still believes he's alive.

Lincoln is convinced his father is dead. He wants to head back to his life and finish his doctorate. But Tess reveals something: Emmet's emergency beacon's signal just went off, after six months. She's made a deal with a TV network, they'll pay for the trip which is the only way she can follow up on this lead. But they'll only pay if Lincoln goes, too. Lincoln, who wants nothing to do with being on TV again, relents.

Even though he had to be convinced to come, Lincoln is definitely the lead character here. The whole story is about activating him. Helping him discover the "magic."

So... it's on. Lincoln and Tess are joined by Emilio, who was Emmet's engine man for 23 years but was told to not come on this last trip, Emilio's similarly mechanically minded 17-year old daughter, Jahel (ha-yel), who only speaks Portugese, Clark, the longtime producer of the TV show, two cameramen Adjay and Sammy, and Reese, a bodyguard and ex-Navy captain.

These right, plus a team of crewmen, head down the Amazon on the S. S. Hopewell. They find the beacon... in an empty, submerged diving cage. It seems like a dead-end. The trip is over just as soon as it began. Until Lena Landry arrives. Lena is the daughter of Russ, one of Emmet's cameramen, also presumed dead on Emmit's trip down the Amazon. She's a fearless helicopter pilot and longtime friend of Lincoln's even though she was always much more attuned to the "magic" of nature than he was. She's pissed at Lincoln for not telling her about this trip to look for his father... and for her own.

And she has aerial pictures that she took when she was searching for her missing father and for Emmet, before the start of our story. She found the Magus, Emmet's ship. It's shoaled off a fork of the river that Google Maps dares not tread called the Boiúna. Local girl Jahel warns against going down there. No one who goes comes back. The S. S. Hopewell's crew won't go. But Tess is determined. So, split into two high impact lifeboats, the team of nine (Tess, Lincoln, Lena, Emilio, Jahel, Reese, Clark, Adjay, and Sammy) head down the Boiúna.

The rest? It's just too good to spoil. I wouldn't want to. It's pretty scary and in the grand tradition of carefully edited (perhaps "found footage" because who knows if any of them, eventually, survive) horror films with some nice character moments, especially between Lincoln and Tess as well as Lincoln and Lena.

The River is a show I can immediately get behind, with intriguing, imperfect characters that jump from the page and I want to know more about, a prescribed style (even if it's one I fear will be an immediate turn off for some due to what is sure to be an effusive amount of shaky-cam), and, well, it's just damn good.

It's also a show that seems like it would make a great horror movie... but as a TV series? How do you get multiple seasons out of this (in other words, how are they going to Lost this)?

Given the "documentary TV show" conceit, the script itself actually has a self-aware reference to this question when, stumbling on some of Emmet's secret video files and hearing Emmet say "the further we go up the Boiúna... the more physics breaks down, and reality... is so much... bigger," Adjay, the lead cameraman, says, "We just got a second season."

At the very least, The River should get a second episode out of it, as the remaining crew on the Magus continue down the Amazon in search of Emmet, following in his footsteps... the barely-glimpsed preternatural threat contained... perhaps.

The one gripe I have are the openings of acts two, three, and four, which are stark contrast "personal interviews" taken of various crew members. It's the familiar talking head interview thing. It fills us in, a little, on some character details... but mostly you just want to jump right back to the action following the act outs. So, if this pilot runs long, I suspect those would be the first things I'd cut. If I had any say over it. Even though, in the long-run, I can these personal interviews becoming necessary.

13 comments:

Lucas
said...

I said it on twitter, but I wanna explain it:

I'm Brazilian, and this pilot will make me roll eyes.Why, you ask?Well, it's because they usually fail hard on the research. For start, Jahel is in no way a Brazilian name. I know that's nothing, but worst things always follow, and that just shatters my suspension of disbelief.But as I already said, if it's good enough, we can always forget and forgive...

Eh, there are just too many series trying to have a supernatural spin these days but very few can actually write real horror: scaring people through the atmosphere and not just the gore + loud noises. Let's hope it isn't the latter.

I think I'll pass for now 'cos it seems like a trip into cultural stereotypes where anything that's non-American or non-city people is mystified into being a threat when it clearly isn't. Sure, I can buy 1 to 2 episodes full of really insulting stereotypes but a series based around that seems too hard to swallow. I can only hope they won't start pushing up Brazilian stereotypes and having it be the white man vs the evil locals. Hopefully the writers are smarter than that?

Also, didn't particularly like Lost. Great atmosphere, fun moments, good subplots, good characters, etc. The things that ruined it all for me were when they ended the series without explaining more than 50% to 60% of what happened and when the universe logic started running off-kilter into psuedoscience and all sorts of crap that made no sense within their universe.

I'm not sure why the show ended but they could've at least bothered to knock up a big bunch of explanations. But they didn't and never did.

"cultural stereotypes where anything that's non-American or non-city people is mystified into being a threat when it clearly isn't. Sure, I can buy 1 to 2 episodes full of really insulting stereotypes but a series based around that seems too hard to swallow. I can only hope they won't start pushing up Brazilian stereotypes and having it be the white man vs the evil locals."

@ Cassie - It almost sounds like you gave up on the show during Season 2. If you actually paid attention to the show and the clues within the episodes (rather than needing it spoonfed to you), you'd see that only about 5-10% of the show went unexplained, and the show never deviated from the pseudoscience that was established in Seasons 1 and 2.

@ Travis - Thanks for all of these pilot reviews. I've really enjoyed reading them, and this show was one of the ones that I was interested in looking into but was withholding reservations about.

Man, sounds like it'd be really good or really bad. If it's able to invoke a sense of suspense and mystery by not twisting local myths into campy or cheesy versions, that's fine. And if it's able to tastefully tie local myths into the plot, that's even better too.

If the writing over-relies on stereotypes, convenient cliches and contrived moments, then it's calling to be shot.

How NOT to do it: like every other cheesy horror flick or TV series out there. Please, no demonic fish or evil sharks. I'll die laughing if I hear about evil bears murdering people or crazy sects hiding out in the woods. I also hope there won't be any conspiracies.

How to do it: only things I can think of are Supernatural and many dark-themed series like TB or TVD, Twin Peaks and so on. Keep the suspense, make things mysterious but with a moderate dose of drama. Drama is good at stirring things up but too much will make the pilot look like the bastard child of a soap opera and horror flick.

P.S. Travis: Saw that comment. Some people clearly need to calm down. If Cassie doesn't get LOST, so be it. It's just TV and different people function with different logic systems.

Amen to that, bro! Too many damn movies and TV revolving around conspiracies. If I gotta watch another damn plot about evil monks who want to summon a Death God or some evil deity for no reason other than to be cliched villains, I'm gonna hurl.

"cultural stereotypes where anything that's non-American or non-city people is mystified into being a threat when it clearly isn't. Sure, I can buy 1 to 2 episodes full of really insulting stereotypes but a series based around that seems too hard to swallow. I can only hope they won't start pushing up Brazilian stereotypes and having it be the white man vs the evil locals."

Amen to this too! Really, horror writers, you can't put out better scripts?

Here's to hoping The River is much better than all that. It will never beat Tales of the Crypt, Twilight Zone or Supernatural but it still will be fun to watch.

The show looks really good. I watch TV to be entertained, so I don't spend too much time looking for reality in the stories. (TV just rips into Canadians with all kinds of cliches but one has to take it with a grain, it's meant to be entertaining not educational). I'll be watching and really hope they come up with some cool plots (some that are resolved episode to episode) and fun eerie backdrops, all designed to enjoy with a bowl of buttery popcorn.

As long as they've got good characters and good writing, I'll enjoy this.

Have to agree with Lucas though about the general representation of foreign countries and cultures in American programmes - it's pretty poor - they spend all that money but none of them bother to pick up a book or do some basic fact checking?

As long as they've got good characters and good writing, I'll enjoy this.

Have to agree with Lucas though about the general representation of foreign countries and cultures in American programmes - it's pretty poor - they spend all that money but none of them bother to pick up a book or do some basic fact checking?

About Me

Travis Yanan is an online alias I used to post on Marc Berman's PI Feedback forum. Travis is a fictional character from a story I wrote long ago that I hope will one day be a television series, though his name may have to change (thank you, clearances) should it ever get to air. Though not the main character, Travis is my favorite from this particular piece because of the multitude of terrible things I plan to put him through and do to him over the (intended) seven seasons of the show. Which I guess makes the real me a sadist.